


the dark things i do not regret

by defcontwo



Category: Marvel (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-13
Updated: 2012-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-31 02:17:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is something in the tone that people use when introducing her - and here is the Black Widow - a curl of condescension, a joke lurking just beneath the surface, some antiquated double standard that she has no patience for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the dark things i do not regret

**Author's Note:**

> This was written to fill a prompt in a meme over on livejournal. It draws pretty heavily in terms of backstory from Marjorie Liu's run, The Name of the Rose, including a direct quote. 
> 
> Natasha does not belong to me, she belongs to Marvel, but as we all know, she is her own woman, first, last, and always.

There is something in the tone that people use when introducing her - _and here is the Black Widow_ \- a curl of condescension, a joke lurking just beneath the surface, some antiquated double standard that she has no patience for. 

Today, it is a British espionage liaison to SHIELD, far too young to know much of the Cold War but full of the sort of self-righteous arrogance that she has always associated with Cold War politics. 

She could rise to the bait, snap back and give them the reaction that they're waiting for. It would be easy, she knows, for finding the right words to bruise and cut has never been particularly difficult for her. 

Decades stretch between now and the times when she was truly young, young and untouched by the horrors of this world, and she can't (won't) apologize for all of the things that she's done to survive to this very moment. 

A few days ago, she overheard a couple of SHIELD agents talking about the Cap, about how much he's lost. About how maybe he's lost too much to be effective, to be allowed out into the field. 

If she thought their opinions were worth a grain of salt, she would have told them that they're wrong. They're wrong because she knows with intimate, unflinching detail what it is like to carry that burden of loss, to feel the years stretch between what you thought you knew and where you are now, and wonder how it ever came to this. 

She can close her eyes and still see people long-dead as clearly as if they had last spoken yesterday. Bearing the burden of their memories is not a weakness, it's a strength, one that she holds to through every day and through every battle. 

She remembers Nikolai and a ribbon wrapped around her finger. She remembers cold, bitter nights in the snow, a rifle clutched tightly in her still-inexperienced hands. She remembers Ivan and she remembers days and nights of confusion, of feeling like she was on the precipice of something important, before letting it all slip away. There were the long nights of brutal fighting and the missions well-executed in broad daylight. She remembers Clint as he used to be, all full of bluster and careless rage, and she can't find it in herself to regret a second of it.

Her story is a myth, much conflated by rumor and hearsay. Natasha Romanova, code-named Black Widow, and everyone thinks they know exactly what that means when they meet her. 

They don't. 

She meets the British agent's gaze head on, waiting for that exact moment when the man becomes uncomfortable, when he begins to realize that he doesn't quite know what he's dealing with. It doesn't matter, in the end, what he thinks because he will never know the whole story. He will never know that every ugly second of her past has made her what she is today, and for all of her struggles, she is irrevocably proud of the person she's become. 

_I am the Black Widow and I could eat you for breakfast._


End file.
